I am fine with with it as is. Tempo control is a lot more broken than gowk.

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thereisnotry [ Thu Aug 30, 2012 7:06 pm ]

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Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

Jonny has a good point.

Is it truly the case that tank squads are a big part of what's keeping the tempo-control squads from the top? I think that's a big part of it, since there are few Rebel squads that could handle a properly-played GOWK/Mace squad.

If that is the case (and it might not be, but I think there's some merit to the theory), then I would absolutely not want to see SSM neutered again. The most frustrating meta was the high-activation-tempo-control meta. I don't ever want to see that return.

I don't think SSM is the only thing keeping the tempo nonsense from the top, but I think it does play a role.

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TheHutts [ Thu Aug 30, 2012 7:33 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

TimmerB123 wrote:

hannahcannon wrote:

I'm guessing the reason GOWK is a bigger problem is because he also has mettle. So it's more likely he'll avoid damage every time he gets to reroll.

Correct. GOWK is the figure at the top of the heap, but I hate Zannah too.

The proposed change (back) to SSM would effect both.

So if he didn't have mettle, he'd be fine? If it was hypothetically possible to change something, that'd be a better thing to change IMO. He needs some form of melee defense, otherwise he'll go back to being unused, like he was before Soresu Style Mastery was un-neutered.

With the other Soresu pieces, it's Force Bubble on Zannah that's annoying, as it means she can limit direct damage too, while Flobi and the new one are fine since they doesn't have Renewal.

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WacoBlaze [ Thu Aug 30, 2012 8:10 pm ]

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Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

I actually tend to just avoid pieces with SSM and take on the rest. I also play a lot of direct damage squads so it is no worry either. Also, if SSM is changed then what about regular Soresu style, it is worded the same as SSM? I worry more about small point pieces doing ridiculous amounts of damage while we still have pieces such as Aura Sing and old Zam and others that do a measly amount and should be waaaaay better than a scrub.

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jedispyder [ Thu Aug 30, 2012 8:12 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

WacoBlaze wrote:

I actually tend to just avoid pieces with SSM and take on the rest. I also play a lot of direct damage squads so it is no worry either. Also, if SSM is changed then what about regular Soresu style, it is worded the same as SSM? I worry more about small point pieces doing ridiculous amounts of damage while we still have pieces such as Aura Sing and old Zam and others that do a measly amount and should be waaaaay better than a scrub.

Regular Soresu Style is word for word Evade (so non-adjacent non-melee attacks). Soresu Style Mastery Errata'd was for all non-melee attacks, so you could be adjacent and still get a save.

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hinkbert [ Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:51 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

TimmerB123 wrote:

GOWK dominated the scene in 2009, until he was breifly banned and then errata'd to effective only against non-melee.

Cut to the 2012 competitive season when SSM was changed back to the card text (effective against all attacks), and he races to the top - winning several regionals and ultimately the world championship.

I argued vehemently against using the card text again, and I will again put forth the motion that SSM needs to be changed back to 2010-2011 definition permanently.

GOWK is clearly dominant, but that's not even my biggest issue. My issue is that luck is such a big part of the piece. Now don't misinterpret this please. Good players use him well. Trevor is without question one of the greatest players in our game, and he used him perfectly. That being said - a 50/50 chance of negating ANY attack is ridiculous. And that's without even a force point. Anything that increases the luck factor vs the skill factor in this game (where it is increasing too much IMO anyway) is a bad thing.

Do we really want to have our game be opening up a pack of quarters and seeing who flips more heads? That's what it feels like. In games with evenly skilled opponents and evenly matched squads it's always been true that luck can be the difference. That will never change. What I don't like is when mismatched skill and mismatched squads can be overcome by dumb luck. And not insane luck like "I rolled 13 1's in a row and he rolled fifteen 20s!", but he rolled over ten 3/4 of the time, and when he rolled under, he FPd and made the save. That's not that dramatic of luck but it's a huge swing in the game. With figures that are less skill pieces and more luck dependent (once again, don't misinterpret this - skilled players can use these pieces even more insanely well), this game is moving in a bad direction. With Avoid defeat being thrown around like candy and Mace LotLS killing full health 140pt figures from a riposte, we need to make a stand.

GOWK is the best place to start. Republic is without question dominant. Now they have a new piece that unless facing MT, virtually assures them winning a key init (why did we make that again?).

We need to go back to this:

Soresu Style Mastery:When hit by a non-melee attack, this character takes no damage with a save of 11

Personally I think GOWK and SSM is fine the way it is, and I like to make a few points.

In terms of tournaments won using GOWK and his dominance, all of those were won by 2 individuals (unless I missed someone somewhere), those 2 people being myself and TinT. I can't speak for Trevor, but I know I used my GOWK/Mace squad a lot because I enjoy it and I wanted to practice a lot with a solid squad for my first competitive year of playing. My point being: I don't think 2 unique players using a GOWK squad = dominance. There were other GOWK squads out there and they didn't perform as well. The meta is wide open and there are a ton of options, including viable options to deal with GOWK and (most importantly) they can deal with GOWK in a timely manner. Which brings me to my second point.

Earlier in the thread it was brought up that GOWK can make games take longer and deny someone a 3 point win. There's another popular style of squad out there that can also do this, the death shot squads (specifically the Republic version). Considering that most of those squads have nearly 120 points tied up in commanders, it can be incredibly difficult to get enough points, or to kill all the pieces, and get a 3 point win. It's something we have to deal with in the game right now and I don't think it's a large enough of a problem that requires the banning of any pieces. That being said, it is incredibly important the players play quickly and decisively so that rounds can move fast. Every player should have access to myriad squad ideas and they should be able to play them if they so desire. Which brings me to my final point.

Rather than banning pieces or handing out errata, the designers should continue to make pieces that keep the meta fresh and vibrant. They have already shown the collective aplomb that they can do this and we should continue to let them do that.

Now, if we get to this point next year, or even prior to regionals, and it's been all "GOWK this and GOWK that", then maybe the notion of a errata should be looked at, but I sincerely doubt that'll happen. I believe it will remain a solid squad, just like Skybuck (as Bill so slyly showed us at Gencon) but that doesn't give enough of a reason to nerf it.

That's my $.02 at least.

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audrisampson [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:16 am ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

I honestly think Tim is more concerned about luck taking the place of skill in the game. It really isn't just GOWK or Windu in paticular its all of the above. There are more and more figures that are coming out that need just as much luck as good play.

Now this is not even saying that Hinkbert or UrbanShmi isnt putting a ton of thought into their GOWK/Windu squads. Im sure both have playtested them time and time again. Actually I think Tim's complaint is more at me and others like me. I played GOWK/Windu for maybe 6 games before the JC and all of them were at 200. No playtest or nothing and I manage to get 3-1 with just dice rolls. Heck the one game I had to think, Greg from Atlanta beat me pretty badly.

Maybe I'm wrong but I think that is more of Tim's complaint and reason to bring up this thread then the fact that GOWK himself is overpowered.

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LESHIPPY [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 8:49 am ]

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Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

Isn't almost the entire game based around luck? I mean we are rolling a dice to see if something happens. You know going into that 5% of the time you are going to miss.

Granted we all know that there are things you can do to improve your odds, but every time you roll the dice you are going with luck, or something that you have no control over.

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audrisampson [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 8:52 am ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

LESHIPPY wrote:

Isn't almost the entire game based around luck? I mean we are rolling a dice to see if something happens. You know going into that 5% of the time you are going to miss.

Granted we all know that there are things you can do to improve your odds, but every time you roll the dice you are going with luck, or something that you have no control over.

Your right but odds are with many figures if you do something completely stupid like running the Vset Jaina into a horde of your opponents characters she will do her three attacks, then get beat on a ton unless you REALLY can make parry saves. In Windu's case if I do that I have the possibility on good dice rolls to annihlate everything you have or in GOWKs case because of Mettle come out with maybe 20-40 damage from three characters beating on him.

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darthmaim [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:10 am ]

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Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

The feedback I get from a lot of gamers is to not make changes to existing figures. The cool thing about SWM, is that typically there is a way to counter everything. So GOWK and Critdu seem to be the issue now, so bring in "No Disentegrations" on a new Vader that can stand toe to toe with Mace, yet somehow give him some sort of cool defense against blasters ( Empire Strikes Back as he deflects Han Solo's shots-Give him an auto save vs blasters ) . Bring in "Dark Aura" on more pieces to make it harder for Obi to make his saves. It's a slippery slope when a game starts banning and errata"ing" figures , because this tends to annoy people and stimulates arguments. Then again, there is always "house" rules that me and the guys at the "Clubhouse" here in California bring into our playing. The fun factor goes up 100 times and we have a ton of more fun in our games in doing so

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TheHutts [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:14 pm ]

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Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

As only a relatively recent player, I might be wrong, but I would have thought a major period in the game for luck would have been when Boba Fett, Bounty Hunter was prevalent. Accurate Shot and Disintegration meant that rolling a 20 with Boba must have been game changing a lot of time.

Author:

hinkbert [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:37 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

audrisampson wrote:

LESHIPPY wrote:

Isn't almost the entire game based around luck? I mean we are rolling a dice to see if something happens. You know going into that 5% of the time you are going to miss.

Granted we all know that there are things you can do to improve your odds, but every time you roll the dice you are going with luck, or something that you have no control over.

Your right but odds are with many figures if you do something completely stupid like running the Vset Jaina into a horde of your opponents characters she will do her three attacks, then get beat on a ton unless you REALLY can make parry saves. In Windu's case if I do that I have the possibility on good dice rolls to annihlate everything you have or in GOWKs case because of Mettle come out with maybe 20-40 damage from three characters beating on him.

So, in the case of going against a piece like Mace, isn't it good that more luck based defenses are being included now? Especially the automatic ones like soresu and parry? To me it seems that the only -ahem- defense against the high damage output that certain pieces have is to give more pieces a chance to negate that damage entirely.

I do like the idea of have automatic reductions too, ala Tera Kasi, but I have no problem with 50/50 abilities. It's just something else you have to take into account when you devise your strategy to beat your opponent.

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LESHIPPY [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:48 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

TheHutts wrote:

As only a relatively recent player, I might be wrong, but I would have thought a major period in the game for luck would have been when Boba Fett, Bounty Hunter was prevalent. Accurate Shot and Disintegration meant that rolling a 20 with Boba must have been game changing a lot of time.

You would be correct. Teamed with bothan nobles to let him shoot again. Plus you could move him into place with commando luke. The bad thing was that the snow speeder could run him down easily.

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Sithborg [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 3:21 pm ]

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Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

By the time the Bothan Noble, Boba had sort of fallen out of top tier. He was used a bit, but Luke's Snowspeeder, and other Rebel Cannons, like Luke's Landspeeder or Han, Scoundrel, were the better options in Rebels, mainly because of Leia.

Disentegration could be gamechanging, sure, but I think most of the top players noted that the major instances of changing the game, were really, really low. Disentegration was a bit more powerful than a normal crit, especially with what was top tier back then. 60 Dam was enough to finish most figs off anyway.

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UrbanShmi [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:34 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

audrisampson wrote:

I honestly think Tim is more concerned about luck taking the place of skill in the game. It really isn't just GOWK or Windu in paticular its all of the above. There are more and more figures that are coming out that need just as much luck as good play.

Now this is not even saying that Hinkbert or UrbanShmi isnt putting a ton of thought into their GOWK/Windu squads.

Now Audri, you of all people know perfectly well that there is no GOWK in my Windu squad. There's no room for him lol.

Personally, I think in a game like ours it's CRITICAL that luck can sometimes overcome skill. Otherwise the mediocre players (i.e., people like me, who know they aren't at the very top of the pile, but who nonetheless aspire to someday make the finals of a major tournament) will eventually walk away. Playing and building squads for the love of the game is all well and good, and it has a place in our game. But I don't decide to play a squad expecting to lose. I decide to play a squad because I have built it with care, studied the meta, and play-tested enough that I know how to handle a variety of situations. Why? So that I will have the best chance I can to WIN. We all have had games we won but shouldn't have, or games that we were leading until the last initiative, only to watch the win slip away in a sequence of crazy rolls. And we have all lost games to people we feel like we shouldn't have lost to, and, yes, that can suck. But for every loss that pisses me off because I feel like I was defeated by a matchup or crappy dice, rather than a better player, there's a less-than-stellar player who now feels great because, for that one game, things finally went his way. And those players are important, too. There has to be a place in the competitive game for players of all skill levels. And in order to preserve that place, there need to be mechanics in play that occasionally allow those players to win, even against the best players in the game.

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swinefeld [ Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:15 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

UrbanShmi wrote:

There has to be a place in the competitive game for players of all skill levels. And in order to preserve that place, there need to be mechanics in play that occasionally allow those players to win, even against the best players in the game.

+1

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thereisnotry [ Sat Sep 01, 2012 8:40 am ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

swinefeld wrote:

UrbanShmi wrote:

There has to be a place in the competitive game for players of all skill levels. And in order to preserve that place, there need to be mechanics in play that occasionally allow those players to win, even against the best players in the game.

+1

+2

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sthlrd2 [ Sat Sep 01, 2012 1:44 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

And there always will be a place for luck and the people who want to run luck based squads. But if the goal is to become a better player then they are not improving their play by using nothing but luck based squads. It's not even about using a luck piece or 2, it's that we see hints that this game is headed in a direction of much more luck based, and you talk about there being a place for players of all levels, then what happans to the skill players when more and more luck based squads are coming out and more and more are playing them kinds of squads. With that happening, then the luck causing a less experienced player to win will happen more often. And when that happens, it didnt make him a better player.

IMO, I'd prefer not to change GOWK back to neutered SSM just for the simple fact of all the jumping around. Ban him, then un-ban him, then neuter SSM, then un-neuter SSM, then Neuter him again?

I wouldnt have a problem if we changed it back but that's just my opinion. I think mace is a bigger issue GOWK is. This mace is simply put a fan boy rendition, and broken. I hate this mace. If your a skill player or a luck player, and your down to just mace with 10 hp left against my full hp greivous dac, 2 full A-series, and 2 full T-series, and my bdo, then you have no business winning that match, and you should know that as well. Mace wins init, he elects to go first and I shoot with twin cause of my T-series, both miss. My other A-series shoots, because of my other T-series, both miss again. Mace then moves 10 with 2 fp and takes an AoO from my T-series (both miss) and crits (no triple damage cause I'm a droid) but flurry crit and next flurry is a regular hit then second atk is a crit followed by another crit and this continues until both A-series and T-series are dead. Grievous moves up to finally get the kill, and misses. Mace wins next init and moves 10 to base grievous and proceeds to kill him with crits. Mace wins when only having 10 hp left. That shouldn't happen anywhere at anytime, and with mace, it happens a lot. You can try and make a squad that handle anything, prepare for certain situations, you can never prepare for that. I mean I even limited mace's stuff cause I was droids but that doesn't matter. That doesn't make a player better, if anything it makes them worse. And IMO there is no place in the game for stuff like that.

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Sithborg [ Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:04 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

sthlrd2 wrote:

Mace wins init, he elects to go first and I shoot with twin cause of my T-series, both miss. My other A-series shoots, because of my other T-series, both miss again. Mace then moves 10 with 2 fp and takes an AoO from my T-series (both miss) and crits (no triple damage cause I'm a droid) but flurry crit and next flurry is a regular hit then second atk is a crit followed by another crit and this continues until both A-series and T-series are dead. Grievous moves up to finally get the kill, and misses. Mace wins next init and moves 10 to base grievous and proceeds to kill him with crits. Mace wins when only having 10 hp left. That shouldn't happen anywhere at anytime, and with mace, it happens a lot. You can try and make a squad that handle anything, prepare for certain situations, you can never prepare for that. I mean I even limited mace's stuff cause I was droids but that doesn't matter. That doesn't make a player better, if anything it makes them worse. And IMO there is no place in the game for stuff like that.

See, this seems more of a placement issue than Mace. You left your figs in a position where all his Flurries could keep on hitting something. The question is, did you see this, or where you betting against a crit? This is only a little more difficult than preparing against Grenades. Droids help, but they are not an instant win. I am curious to see how HK and the new Boa-Dur can do against Mace. And we will see how the other big counter figs (Saesee and Durge) do with V4 and what is in development. And there is always the pure hate squad in Darktroopers.

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buttcabbge [ Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:28 pm ]

Post subject:

Re: GOWK. Yes, sorry, this had to be brought up

sthlrd2 wrote:

Mace wins init, he elects to go first and I shoot with twin cause of my T-series, both miss. My other A-series shoots, because of my other T-series, both miss again. Mace then moves 10 with 2 fp and takes an AoO from my T-series (both miss) and crits (no triple damage cause I'm a droid) but flurry crit and next flurry is a regular hit then second atk is a crit followed by another crit and this continues until both A-series and T-series are dead. Grievous moves up to finally get the kill, and misses. Mace wins next init and moves 10 to base grievous and proceeds to kill him with crits. Mace wins when only having 10 hp left. That shouldn't happen anywhere at anytime, and with mace, it happens a lot. You can try and make a squad that handle anything, prepare for certain situations, you can never prepare for that. I mean I even limited mace's stuff cause I was droids but that doesn't matter. That doesn't make a player better, if anything it makes them worse. And IMO there is no place in the game for stuff like that.

Fwiw, my first stab at the math on this (which is approximate, since you don't indicate whether or not Mace has cover against the initial shots) suggests that the scenario you outline has roughly a .0000000008 percent chance of occurring. I mean, even if Mace has cover, your A-Series droids only need 9's to hit him. If you miss that four times, it isn't about Mace--it's about the Dice Gods laughing at you. And the chance of Mace getting all the crits he needs (9 out of 11 rolls) after using all his force points to move is essentially zero.

I'm open to the idea that Mace allows people to get out of situations they shouldn't be able to, but this example is a bit too extreme in its improbability.